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On May 08 2013 04:41 renoB wrote:
I think it just goes to show that "morality" is incredibly subjective. There is nothing inherently immoral about sex (except the argument of "God says so"), and so I wonder why the sexual revolution and hippies get the blame for immorality in today's society. If only advocates of "50 years ago morality" could show data of how increases in sexuality increase crime rates....
The fact of the matter is, more people are becoming secular (religious or atheist), and this is seen as being immoral. I think, as was stated earlier, that the best possible grasp on a definition of morality comes from the categorical imperative. And when we use the cat imp as a guideline for morality, I think it shows our society becoming more moral as secularism rises. That's my opinion anyway.
I wouldn't say there's NOTHING immoral about sex outside of some dictation of a god. If we say reckless disregard and taking unnecessarily risky actions is immoral, that would make sex part of an "immoral greyscale" dependent on maturity and financial stability. Even with the use of contraception.
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United States42993 Posts
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations.
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On May 08 2013 02:54 Trumpet wrote:
The best thing I got out of having to take Latin in high school was translating a "back in the old days..." passage from the Aeneid. Never taken those arguments as more than a bad joke since. Also I love anyone who attempts a serious discussion with "my gut tells me..." Personally I blame my deteriorating morality on Fallout.
Does anyone else get scared when they see their area in the national news? Every time something begins with "Louisiana governor" or "In the Louisiana town of ..." I shudder because it's so often awful.
Nah, I wish the "knowledge corridor" was in the news more often 
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On May 08 2013 05:11 KwarK wrote:
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations.
Just to be clear, I wasn't advocating this. Not sure if you were responding to what I wrote or not, but just wanted to make that clear.
I definitely agree that making sex a shameful kind of act is not particularly healthy for developing teens. That said, there is some merit to some of the social constructs that have cropped up around sex in the sense that those constructs exist because sex is so powerful, especially for extremely young people with no perspective. When parents tell their kids not to have sex until they're older, it's not awful advice, so long as it's based on genuine concern for their child getting emotionally overwhelmed/making a stupid decision/confusing the intensity of sex with the intensity of the relationship/etc and not on some weird upholding of sex as sacred.
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On May 08 2013 02:13 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 02:01 Sermokala wrote:On May 08 2013 01:53 KwarK wrote:On May 08 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:
I feel like the pervasive element in the church of "young earth" ascientific nonsense is simple a combination of shitty literalist interpretation of the bible and some intent to distance themselves from "mainstream science". I still to this day don't see where evolution conflicts with my faith or why people accept being taught ignorance for the sake of ignorance.
They don't really deserve the hate they get I don't think. There will always be a strong reactionary element in response to any strong progressive element. Its just a function of an expressive society. I disagree, they absolutely deserve the hate they get. You don't see this shit with gravity. People don't turn around and go "well yes but the thing is my faith tells me that things fall up and God guides me and it's religion". There really is no difference between "things fall down because a force pulls them towards the mass of the earth" and "things have lower amounts of c-14 because it decays at a known rate over time" and yet people think it's fine to contest one of them. If carbon decay was visible to the naked eye nobody would claim the world was 8000 years old. But you have to understand that your reasoning is the same reasoning that they use to hate on gays and common science. We don't know what cause's stuff to fall to the earth like that and its fairly easy to poke holes with some people over a complex calculation of the ammont of a certain kind of carbon to determine its absolute age. you can't just expect people to accept wild scientific theory's without any reasonable explanation for them and then spew hate and bile on them when they don't get it. You have to understand just how much hate these people get from people spouting science at them and telling them that it disproves everything that they believe like its fact. Most of these people never got a college education and are lucky to get anything past a shitty high school education. And yet people are pushing into their face high science and useing it to justify their bigotry tword them. They're ignorant but they aren't necessarily hateful beacuse of that. Your hate for them is only breeding their hate for you. I could explain this to someone with a primary level of education. "Imagine a candle that burns at an even rate" "Okay" "Do you understand that you could see how much of the candle was burned and use that to see how long it'd been alight" "Yes, makes sense" "All dead plants and animals (and anything made from them) have candles like that which can be seen with a special kind of pair of glasses so you can actually see how old they are" "Can I check?" "Yes"
You're completely missing the point again. You're explaining to people who didn't learn about carbon dateing in high school to take your word that these "special glasses" that they can't actually look though, will never look though, will never know anyone who will look though, who you yourself never looked though, is explaining what they were taught was wrong in an incredibly demeaning and humiliating way.
What if I tried to explain to you why the british empire was responsible for more innocent lives lost then hitler ever dreamed of killing. Sure I probably have the science and statistics to back it up but I have no right to bring up something you care about in some condescending and dickish way.
The point is that there wouldn't be "creationalism" taught in our schools if progressives weren't so dickish in fighting people who are ignorant who question their children education when they are questioning it because they weren't taught it in high school themselves. Intrest in their child's education should be encouraged. Immigrants were taught english coming over from america by teaching their kids to speak english before teaching thei home language . Did people have a problem with their home nations culture being usurped by this assimilation process? Ignorance isn't a character flaw its simple a state of education. Stop attacking ignorance with hate when it should only be attacked with education.
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On May 08 2013 05:11 KwarK wrote:
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations.
This, then, begs the question of why the liberation of women has correlated with a decline in female happiness across industrialized countries.
My explanation would be that while throwing out the bad parts (women are hysterical, they can't think rationally, etc.) of the patriarchal age's attitudes towards women, we've thrown out the good parts as well (treating women with respect just because they are women, the virtue of a woman, a woman supporting him being what makes a man able to stand tall and be a man, etc.). Reasons to devalue women were tossed out, but so were many (non-sexual) reasons to value them. Women are more sex objects today than they ever have been, it's sad but that's where throwing out the baby with the bathwater has taken us.
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United States42993 Posts
On May 08 2013 05:19 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 02:13 KwarK wrote:On May 08 2013 02:01 Sermokala wrote:On May 08 2013 01:53 KwarK wrote:On May 08 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:
I feel like the pervasive element in the church of "young earth" ascientific nonsense is simple a combination of shitty literalist interpretation of the bible and some intent to distance themselves from "mainstream science". I still to this day don't see where evolution conflicts with my faith or why people accept being taught ignorance for the sake of ignorance.
They don't really deserve the hate they get I don't think. There will always be a strong reactionary element in response to any strong progressive element. Its just a function of an expressive society. I disagree, they absolutely deserve the hate they get. You don't see this shit with gravity. People don't turn around and go "well yes but the thing is my faith tells me that things fall up and God guides me and it's religion". There really is no difference between "things fall down because a force pulls them towards the mass of the earth" and "things have lower amounts of c-14 because it decays at a known rate over time" and yet people think it's fine to contest one of them. If carbon decay was visible to the naked eye nobody would claim the world was 8000 years old. But you have to understand that your reasoning is the same reasoning that they use to hate on gays and common science. We don't know what cause's stuff to fall to the earth like that and its fairly easy to poke holes with some people over a complex calculation of the ammont of a certain kind of carbon to determine its absolute age. you can't just expect people to accept wild scientific theory's without any reasonable explanation for them and then spew hate and bile on them when they don't get it. You have to understand just how much hate these people get from people spouting science at them and telling them that it disproves everything that they believe like its fact. Most of these people never got a college education and are lucky to get anything past a shitty high school education. And yet people are pushing into their face high science and useing it to justify their bigotry tword them. They're ignorant but they aren't necessarily hateful beacuse of that. Your hate for them is only breeding their hate for you. I could explain this to someone with a primary level of education. "Imagine a candle that burns at an even rate" "Okay" "Do you understand that you could see how much of the candle was burned and use that to see how long it'd been alight" "Yes, makes sense" "All dead plants and animals (and anything made from them) have candles like that which can be seen with a special kind of pair of glasses so you can actually see how old they are" "Can I check?" "Yes" You're completely missing the point again. You're explaining to people who didn't learn about carbon dateing in high school to take your word that these "special glasses" that they can't actually look though, will never look though, will never know anyone who will look though, who you yourself never looked though, is explaining what they were taught was wrong in an incredibly demeaning and humiliating way. What if I tried to explain to you why the british empire was responsible for more innocent lives lost then hitler ever dreamed of killing. Sure I probably have the science and statistics to back it up but I have no right to bring up something you care about in some condescending and dickish way. The point is that there wouldn't be "creationalism" taught in our schools if progressives weren't so dickish in fighting people who are ignorant who question their children education when they are questioning it because they weren't taught it in high school themselves. Intrest in their child's education should be encouraged. Immigrants were taught english coming over from america by teaching their kids to speak english before teaching thei home language . Did people have a problem with their home nations culture being usurped by this assimilation process? Ignorance isn't a character flaw its simple a state of education. Stop attacking ignorance with hate when it should only be attacked with education.
As a child I went to science museums, natural history museums and so forth. Science was always accessible to me, it wasn't some arcane magic practiced by priests of science, it was something you could grasp, if only at a basic level. There were basic demonstrations of scientific principles intended for the consumption of children.
You're right, they wouldn't have let me into random research labs as a child but you don't need that to make science accessible.
There is no great divide between the world of the scientist and the laity.
If I'm basing my decision making on the British Empire being not responsible for lives lost and then making important decisions then you'd absolutely be right to bring up statistics that would prove me wrong. It'd potentially stop me making a new British Empire which, if your research panned out, would be bad. You'd be negligent not to, you have a moral obligation to share your knowledge.
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I don't really get some of the discussion of the categorical imperative. I haven't read the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, only the Critic of practical reason, but I doubt Kant deduce anything about sex from any form of the categorical imperative (and in the Critic, the formulation about not treating human as mean isn't really said to be equivalent for me, he just deduces it from the "Always act so that the maxim of your will..." so , and not that directly imo).
I say that I doubt it, because the very problem of kantian moral for me (apart from the link with religion which is I think the weakest part I've read from my dear Immanuel), is how little you can actually use it practically. As Péguy famously said "La morale kantienne a les mains pures, mais elle n'a pas de main."
I guess that Kant views on sex akin to the huge majority of his time, but I don't really see how to link it to his philosophy, which is what matters.
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On May 08 2013 05:24 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:11 KwarK wrote:
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations. This, then, begs the question of why the liberation of women has correlated with a decline in female happiness across industrialized countries.My explanation would be that while throwing out the bad parts (women are hysterical, they can't think rationally, etc.) of the patriarchal age's attitudes towards women, we've thrown out the good parts as well (treating women with respect just because they are women, the virtue of a woman, a woman supporting him being what makes a man able to stand tall and be a man, etc.). Reasons to devalue women were tossed out, but so were many (non-sexual) reasons to value them. Women are more sex objects today than they ever have been, it's sad but that's where throwing out the baby with the bathwater has taken us.
I don't think respecting women "because they are women" makes any sense at all; we should respect people because they're people, not because of their gender. There is, similarly, no unique "virtue of a woman" that I can think of which isn't totally arbitrary. Finally, the idea of a woman being a "supporter" of a man so that he can "be a man" is, frankly, offensive to both genders. Women are perfectly capable of behaving independently, and men are perfectly capable of behaving independently without having a woman to support them.
Just because we had non-sexual reasons to value women doesn't mean that they were good reasons. The best reason to value women, as I mentioned, is because women are human beings like everyone else.
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On May 08 2013 05:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 02:54 Trumpet wrote:
The best thing I got out of having to take Latin in high school was translating a "back in the old days..." passage from the Aeneid. Never taken those arguments as more than a bad joke since. Also I love anyone who attempts a serious discussion with "my gut tells me..." Personally I blame my deteriorating morality on Fallout.
Does anyone else get scared when they see their area in the national news? Every time something begins with "Louisiana governor" or "In the Louisiana town of ..." I shudder because it's so often awful. Nah, I wish the "knowledge corridor" was in the news more often
Must just be for those of us on the bottom end of the education spectrum. I'm jealous.
I agree with Kwark almost 100%, the sooner we quit making girls feel bad for wanting / enjoying sex, the better for gender equality. With regard to plan B, I'm of the opinion that if a girl isn't mature enough to vote, drink, or drive, I don't think she's mature enough to be a mom. Teens having easier access to contraceptives is a societal good imo. Your parents being able to decide whether or not you have a child is pretty bull shit from a libertarian standpoint.
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On May 08 2013 05:27 corumjhaelen wrote:
I don't really get some of the discussion of the categorical imperative. I haven't read the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, only the Critic of practical reason, but I doubt Kant deduce anything about sex from any form of the categorical imperative (and in the Critic, the formulation about not treating human as mean isn't really said to be equivalent for me, he just deduces it from the "Always act so that the maxim of your will..." so , and not that directly imo).
I say that I doubt it, because the very problem of kantian moral for me (apart from the link with religion which is I think the weakest part I've read from my dear Immanuel), is how little you can actually use it practically. As Péguy famously said "La morale kantienne a les mains pures, mais elle n'a pas de main."
I guess that Kant views on sex akin to the huge majority of his time, but I don't really see how to link it to his philosophy, which is what matters.
He did view them as equivalent http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#UniFor.
The groundwork covers similar ground to the second critique. You'll find more applied stuff in the Metaphysics of Morals itself. Here he comes out as very anti-sex and masturbation, deriving these views from the CI.
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On May 08 2013 05:26 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:19 Sermokala wrote:On May 08 2013 02:13 KwarK wrote:On May 08 2013 02:01 Sermokala wrote:On May 08 2013 01:53 KwarK wrote:On May 08 2013 01:24 Sermokala wrote:
I feel like the pervasive element in the church of "young earth" ascientific nonsense is simple a combination of shitty literalist interpretation of the bible and some intent to distance themselves from "mainstream science". I still to this day don't see where evolution conflicts with my faith or why people accept being taught ignorance for the sake of ignorance.
They don't really deserve the hate they get I don't think. There will always be a strong reactionary element in response to any strong progressive element. Its just a function of an expressive society. I disagree, they absolutely deserve the hate they get. You don't see this shit with gravity. People don't turn around and go "well yes but the thing is my faith tells me that things fall up and God guides me and it's religion". There really is no difference between "things fall down because a force pulls them towards the mass of the earth" and "things have lower amounts of c-14 because it decays at a known rate over time" and yet people think it's fine to contest one of them. If carbon decay was visible to the naked eye nobody would claim the world was 8000 years old. But you have to understand that your reasoning is the same reasoning that they use to hate on gays and common science. We don't know what cause's stuff to fall to the earth like that and its fairly easy to poke holes with some people over a complex calculation of the ammont of a certain kind of carbon to determine its absolute age. you can't just expect people to accept wild scientific theory's without any reasonable explanation for them and then spew hate and bile on them when they don't get it. You have to understand just how much hate these people get from people spouting science at them and telling them that it disproves everything that they believe like its fact. Most of these people never got a college education and are lucky to get anything past a shitty high school education. And yet people are pushing into their face high science and useing it to justify their bigotry tword them. They're ignorant but they aren't necessarily hateful beacuse of that. Your hate for them is only breeding their hate for you. I could explain this to someone with a primary level of education. "Imagine a candle that burns at an even rate" "Okay" "Do you understand that you could see how much of the candle was burned and use that to see how long it'd been alight" "Yes, makes sense" "All dead plants and animals (and anything made from them) have candles like that which can be seen with a special kind of pair of glasses so you can actually see how old they are" "Can I check?" "Yes" You're completely missing the point again. You're explaining to people who didn't learn about carbon dateing in high school to take your word that these "special glasses" that they can't actually look though, will never look though, will never know anyone who will look though, who you yourself never looked though, is explaining what they were taught was wrong in an incredibly demeaning and humiliating way. What if I tried to explain to you why the british empire was responsible for more innocent lives lost then hitler ever dreamed of killing. Sure I probably have the science and statistics to back it up but I have no right to bring up something you care about in some condescending and dickish way. The point is that there wouldn't be "creationalism" taught in our schools if progressives weren't so dickish in fighting people who are ignorant who question their children education when they are questioning it because they weren't taught it in high school themselves. Intrest in their child's education should be encouraged. Immigrants were taught english coming over from america by teaching their kids to speak english before teaching thei home language . Did people have a problem with their home nations culture being usurped by this assimilation process? Ignorance isn't a character flaw its simple a state of education. Stop attacking ignorance with hate when it should only be attacked with education. As a child I went to science museums, natural history museums and so forth. Science was always accessible to me, it wasn't some arcane magic practiced by priests of science, it was something you could grasp, if only at a basic level. There were basic demonstrations of scientific principles intended for the consumption of children. You're right, they wouldn't have let me into random research labs as a child but you don't need that to make science accessible. There is no great divide between the world of the scientist and the laity. If I'm basing my decision making on the British Empire being not responsible for lives lost and then making important decisions then you'd absolutely be right to bring up statistics that would prove me wrong. It'd potentially stop me making a new British Empire which, if your research panned out, would be bad. You'd be negligent not to, you have a moral obligation to share your knowledge.
And the people liveing in middle america didn't get any of those things you talked about. They live probably 100 miles away from a science museum or a natural history museum. Its not logistically logical to expect people who live out in the rual areas of america to have that experience growing up. all they have is whats around them.
And your second point points out why people think the loss of religion is reducing the morals of modern times. You are directly justifying the genocides of millions of people because it progress's the billions of other people liveing around them. thats the same justification used in eugenics that gave hitler the scientific justification for the holocaust (not talking about the jew's killed in the holocaust here).
On May 08 2013 05:28 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:24 DeepElemBlues wrote:On May 08 2013 05:11 KwarK wrote:
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations. This, then, begs the question of why the liberation of women has correlated with a decline in female happiness across industrialized countries.My explanation would be that while throwing out the bad parts (women are hysterical, they can't think rationally, etc.) of the patriarchal age's attitudes towards women, we've thrown out the good parts as well (treating women with respect just because they are women, the virtue of a woman, a woman supporting him being what makes a man able to stand tall and be a man, etc.). Reasons to devalue women were tossed out, but so were many (non-sexual) reasons to value them. Women are more sex objects today than they ever have been, it's sad but that's where throwing out the baby with the bathwater has taken us. I don't think respecting women "because they are women" makes any sense at all; we should respect people because they're people, not because of their gender. There is, similarly, no unique "virtue of a woman" that I can think of which isn't totally arbitrary. Finally, the idea of a woman being a "supporter" of a man so that he can "be a man" is, frankly, offensive to both genders. Women are perfectly capable of behaving independently, and men are perfectly capable of behaving independently without having a woman to support them. Just because we had non-sexual reasons to value women doesn't mean that they were good reasons. The best reason to value women, as I mentioned, is because women are human beings like everyone else.
Your missing the point of what he was posting about. It doesn't matter if its logical or not the reality is that women are less happy when the things that make them happy are stripped away in some crusade for gender equality. It doesn't matter if its right or not but the post he made was about how gender equality was making women less happy not that gender equality is wrong.
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On May 08 2013 05:32 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:27 corumjhaelen wrote:
I don't really get some of the discussion of the categorical imperative. I haven't read the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, only the Critic of practical reason, but I doubt Kant deduce anything about sex from any form of the categorical imperative (and in the Critic, the formulation about not treating human as mean isn't really said to be equivalent for me, he just deduces it from the "Always act so that the maxim of your will..." so , and not that directly imo).
I say that I doubt it, because the very problem of kantian moral for me (apart from the link with religion which is I think the weakest part I've read from my dear Immanuel), is how little you can actually use it practically. As Péguy famously said "La morale kantienne a les mains pures, mais elle n'a pas de main."
I guess that Kant views on sex akin to the huge majority of his time, but I don't really see how to link it to his philosophy, which is what matters. He did view them as equivalent http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#UniFor. The groundwork covers similar ground to the second critique. You'll find more applied stuff in the Metaphysics of Morals itself. Here he comes out as very anti-sex and masturbation, deriving these views from the CI.
It's worth noting that Kant thought sex was pretty much always kinda bad but in marriage it was sort of justifiable because husbands and wives sort of "owned" each other.
Kinda amusing looking back on good ol' Immanuel.
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On May 08 2013 05:33 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:32 frogrubdown wrote:On May 08 2013 05:27 corumjhaelen wrote:
I don't really get some of the discussion of the categorical imperative. I haven't read the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, only the Critic of practical reason, but I doubt Kant deduce anything about sex from any form of the categorical imperative (and in the Critic, the formulation about not treating human as mean isn't really said to be equivalent for me, he just deduces it from the "Always act so that the maxim of your will..." so , and not that directly imo).
I say that I doubt it, because the very problem of kantian moral for me (apart from the link with religion which is I think the weakest part I've read from my dear Immanuel), is how little you can actually use it practically. As Péguy famously said "La morale kantienne a les mains pures, mais elle n'a pas de main."
I guess that Kant views on sex akin to the huge majority of his time, but I don't really see how to link it to his philosophy, which is what matters. He did view them as equivalent http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#UniFor. The groundwork covers similar ground to the second critique. You'll find more applied stuff in the Metaphysics of Morals itself. Here he comes out as very anti-sex and masturbation, deriving these views from the CI. It's worth noting that Kant thought sex was pretty much always kinda bad but in marriage it was sort of justifiable because husbands and wives sort of "owned" each other. Kinda amusing looking back on good ol' Immanuel.
Yup, even when he got things right it was for confusing reasons. For instance, he thought it was bad to torture animals for fun, but not because it hurt the animals. Animals, not being ends in themselves, don't deserve any moral consideration. Rather, he thought that torturing animals might influence you to behave worse toward humans.
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United States42993 Posts
On May 08 2013 05:24 DeepElemBlues wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:11 KwarK wrote:
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations. This, then, begs the question of why the liberation of women has correlated with a decline in female happiness across industrialized countries.My explanation would be that while throwing out the bad parts (women are hysterical, they can't think rationally, etc.) of the patriarchal age's attitudes towards women, we've thrown out the good parts as well (treating women with respect just because they are women, the virtue of a woman, a woman supporting him being what makes a man able to stand tall and be a man, etc.). Reasons to devalue women were tossed out, but so were many (non-sexual) reasons to value them. Women are more sex objects today than they ever have been, it's sad but that's where throwing out the baby with the bathwater has taken us.
Could just be that we're asking different women. 40 years ago even feminism was still marginalising black/gay/trans women. When massive social changes have taken place, as they have in the 40 years this survey looks at, and there is no control group (there cannot be for this) then the results have to be looked at in that context. The ideal married white woman living in the suburbs still exists but probably no longer dominates the evidence the way they used to, disproportionate to the change in society.
Alternatively issues with happiness could be connected to changing pressures and opportunities. Women could be considerably better off than they were but have experienced a greater increase in their material and social expectations than what they have been able to realise resulting in overall disappointment. The same can be applied to professional and familial aspirations, the higher ceiling leads to a greater gap.
I feel strongly that I'd rather be a woman now than 40 years ago. My potential to get an education, a job, to control my personal and family life and to be sexually independent have all greatly increased. Happiness is a difficult metric to measure unfortunately.
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On May 08 2013 05:28 Shiori wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:24 DeepElemBlues wrote:On May 08 2013 05:11 KwarK wrote:
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations. This, then, begs the question of why the liberation of women has correlated with a decline in female happiness across industrialized countries.My explanation would be that while throwing out the bad parts (women are hysterical, they can't think rationally, etc.) of the patriarchal age's attitudes towards women, we've thrown out the good parts as well (treating women with respect just because they are women, the virtue of a woman, a woman supporting him being what makes a man able to stand tall and be a man, etc.). Reasons to devalue women were tossed out, but so were many (non-sexual) reasons to value them. Women are more sex objects today than they ever have been, it's sad but that's where throwing out the baby with the bathwater has taken us. I don't think respecting women "because they are women" makes any sense at all; we should respect people because they're people, not because of their gender. There is, similarly, no unique "virtue of a woman" that I can think of which isn't totally arbitrary. Finally, the idea of a woman being a "supporter" of a man so that he can "be a man" is, frankly, offensive to both genders. Women are perfectly capable of behaving independently, and men are perfectly capable of behaving independently without having a woman to support them. Just because we had non-sexual reasons to value women doesn't mean that they were good reasons. The best reason to value women, as I mentioned, is because women are human beings like everyone else.
What's wrong with valuing certain strengths for certain roles? Everyone on an American football team is a human and is valued as one (I would hope ) However, I would value/honor/respect/love a lineman for his abilities in the line but would be disappointed/critical of his abilities as a wide receiver or quarterback. I imagine the lineman gets more fulfillment being successful blocking etc. even he wanted to be a wide receiver since he was a small child. There's probably a lot of holes in the analogy but I just don't see why roles are a bad think intrinsically. There's probably something about the culture dictating the individual, but how much should the individual be a part of the larger community. I'm starting to ramble, I normally just do this in my head and never post but I've already written this much. TL:DR I discriminate against large, powerful men and encourage them to be lineman
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On May 08 2013 05:28 Trumpet wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:14 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On May 08 2013 02:54 Trumpet wrote:
The best thing I got out of having to take Latin in high school was translating a "back in the old days..." passage from the Aeneid. Never taken those arguments as more than a bad joke since. Also I love anyone who attempts a serious discussion with "my gut tells me..." Personally I blame my deteriorating morality on Fallout.
Does anyone else get scared when they see their area in the national news? Every time something begins with "Louisiana governor" or "In the Louisiana town of ..." I shudder because it's so often awful. Nah, I wish the "knowledge corridor" was in the news more often Must just be for those of us on the bottom end of the education spectrum. I'm jealous.I agree with Kwark almost 100%, the sooner we quit making girls feel bad for wanting / enjoying sex, the better for gender equality. With regard to plan B, I'm of the opinion that if a girl isn't mature enough to vote, drink, or drive, I don't think she's mature enough to be a mom. Teens having easier access to contraceptives is a societal good imo. Your parents being able to decide whether or not you have a child is pretty bull shit from a libertarian standpoint.
You can always move and embrace the pretentiousness! (and help shovel in the winter)
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On May 08 2013 05:41 mordek wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:28 Shiori wrote:On May 08 2013 05:24 DeepElemBlues wrote:On May 08 2013 05:11 KwarK wrote:
I'd argue that the idea that female virginity is sacred (not just in a religious sense) is far more emotionally damaging and detrimental to gender relations and development than potential recreational sex. A teenager with enough responsibility to safeguard something that important and with enough maturity to judge her male peers correctly and not go all teenage hormonal loved up is probably fine either way but the rest of them will get emotionally damaged by the process. It devalues girls who have sex and fetishises a borderline rapey level of seduction by making sex something to be obtained from girls by boys as a rite of passage. If you stripped away the social rules and pressure and just let children work it out for themselves then, assuming they practiced safe sex, I'm reasonably sure they'd be much better off.
Outside of a strictly biological reproductive standpoint which is no longer really relevant the fetishisation of the virgin has nothing positive to contribute to gender relations. This, then, begs the question of why the liberation of women has correlated with a decline in female happiness across industrialized countries.My explanation would be that while throwing out the bad parts (women are hysterical, they can't think rationally, etc.) of the patriarchal age's attitudes towards women, we've thrown out the good parts as well (treating women with respect just because they are women, the virtue of a woman, a woman supporting him being what makes a man able to stand tall and be a man, etc.). Reasons to devalue women were tossed out, but so were many (non-sexual) reasons to value them. Women are more sex objects today than they ever have been, it's sad but that's where throwing out the baby with the bathwater has taken us. I don't think respecting women "because they are women" makes any sense at all; we should respect people because they're people, not because of their gender. There is, similarly, no unique "virtue of a woman" that I can think of which isn't totally arbitrary. Finally, the idea of a woman being a "supporter" of a man so that he can "be a man" is, frankly, offensive to both genders. Women are perfectly capable of behaving independently, and men are perfectly capable of behaving independently without having a woman to support them. Just because we had non-sexual reasons to value women doesn't mean that they were good reasons. The best reason to value women, as I mentioned, is because women are human beings like everyone else. What's wrong with valuing certain strengths for certain roles? Everyone on an American football team is a human and is valued as one (I would hope ) However, I would value/honor/respect/love a lineman for his abilities in the line but would be disappointed/critical of his abilities as a wide receiver or quarterback. I imagine the lineman gets more fulfillment being successful blocking etc. even he wanted to be a wide receiver since he was a small child. There's probably a lot of holes in the analogy but I just don't see why roles are a bad think intrinsically. There's probably something about the culture dictating the individual, but how much should the individual be a part of the larger community. I'm starting to ramble, I normally just do this in my head and never post but I've already written this much. TL:DR I discriminate against large, powerful men and encourage them to be lineman
There's nothing wrong with roles if people choose to be in them. What's silly is that people want to pretend that women somehow require men to guide them because they're women. Or that women are delicate flowers worthy of special respect. Or that women are supposed to support their husband's endeavors while being definitively under his protection/wing/influence.
The best evidence against gender roles is that people, by and large, have revolted against them in recent years. I have no problem with a woman who defers to her husband's wishes and stays at home to raise the kids. That's her call. But to act like this position is somehow superior, more virtuous, or in any way better than the woman who goes to work every day and doesn't take orders from anyone is silly.
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On May 08 2013 05:32 frogrubdown wrote:Show nested quote +On May 08 2013 05:27 corumjhaelen wrote:
I don't really get some of the discussion of the categorical imperative. I haven't read the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, only the Critic of practical reason, but I doubt Kant deduce anything about sex from any form of the categorical imperative (and in the Critic, the formulation about not treating human as mean isn't really said to be equivalent for me, he just deduces it from the "Always act so that the maxim of your will..." so , and not that directly imo).
I say that I doubt it, because the very problem of kantian moral for me (apart from the link with religion which is I think the weakest part I've read from my dear Immanuel), is how little you can actually use it practically. As Péguy famously said "La morale kantienne a les mains pures, mais elle n'a pas de main."
I guess that Kant views on sex akin to the huge majority of his time, but I don't really see how to link it to his philosophy, which is what matters. He did view them as equivalent http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#UniFor. The groundwork covers similar ground to the second critique. You'll find more applied stuff in the Metaphysics of Morals itself. Here he comes out as very anti-sex and masturbation, deriving these views from the CI.
Interesting. I really think it's only developped in the Metaphysics, the structure of the Critic seems too different to account for that. I'm 99% sure he doesn't qualify those statement as reformulation in it, even if he covers them in other ways. Maybe if it's because he changed his mind or (more likely) to follow the structure of the first Critic.
Anyway, I'm pretty unconvinced by those equivalence, and your link itself restrict the meaning of those too. And I have problems both with the Kingdom and Humanity formulas anyway.
As for the torture about animals or sex, I don't think it's a really good critic of kantian moral, as I think you can "fix" the thinking easily to account for the cultural change. What's most interesting is the theory.
Thanks very much for the link anyway, I really appreciate it
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There are people who abuse roles. There are terrible, terrible people who do horrendous things under the guise of "roles". That's just human nature and I would revolt against anything like it. If a man is guiding, respectful, protective in ways that are truly loving and honoring to the woman this is a role society should aspire for imo. If a man does this, what is to stop a woman from making the choice to work every day or stay at home with kids? Relationships are about sacrifices for the better of more than yourself. Play to each other's strengths. The whole becomes more than the parts.
My wife is pregnant and we've had multiple conversations on whether she will work or stay home. There's so many factors than "what I want" and "it's my life and my choice". I'm just latching on to this because I can speak to this situation. Finances are a factor (daycare vs. additional income, career could also come into play here) What's best for the child? We come at this situation from different angles and different roles, both offering to make sacrifices and compromises and playing to each other's strengths so that the end result is the best it could be.
When is "doesn't take orders from anyone" virtuous by any definition? Honest question, to delve into the thought behind the statement.
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EPT
